“Learning to play and playing to learn’’ Erasmus Project

Project Title

“Learning to play and playing to learn’’

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Disabilities – special needs; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The project was developed in the Institutes of towns of six different European countries: Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Hungary and, at first, even Canary Islands who left at the starting phase. The main purpose of the project was increasing childhood playful activities as a way of living and learning at school and at home, so as to prevent and deal with some common current social issues such as emotional relating troubles, lack of respect and tolerance and loss of reference points and values with resulting growing violent attitudes.

Fully achieved objectives of the project have been:an increased tolerance and acceptance towards other people; a full awareness of children about their own national identity and the creation of a sense of belonging to the European community; the implementation of a friendship atmosphere among pupils and the children’s expertise to work and play as a group, developing their social skills;the experiences of sharing through media overcoming the language barriers for both pupils and teachers and the development of ICT skills through the use of modern technologies and virtual mobility; the cooperation among teachers in comparing their learning and teaching approaches, sharing examples of good practice.

Teachers, pupils, parents, local associations and institutions were involved in the project. Numbers of children and teachers from the several Institutes:I.O. LEONARDO DA VINCI, ITALY(463 students and 49 teachers); FasoriKicsinyekÓvodája, HUNGARY (74 children and 8 teachers);CEIP Valdemembra, SPAIN(585 pupils and 41 teachers);Agrupamento de Escolas de Marrazes,PORTUGAL(390 out of 1953 and 10 teachers); ODZ”Slaveiche”N17, BULGARIA (176 children and 14 teachers);12 Nipiagogio Glyfadas, GREECE(45 children and 3 teachers).

All planned activities were accomplished involving in cooperation all the participant components.
-Activities mainly carried out by teachers: setting up an international blog/website of the project; making a multimedia presentation of partner schools and photobooks; creating a ‘Trans Europe Express Game’ by all partner countries; cooperating in writing a guide book with traditional games from each country; promoting and arranging a school play; sharing teaching materials and ideas; getting trained about the project themes by the international meetings certificated workshops; reporting and sharing documentation.
-Activities mainly carried out by children and pupils: designing a logo of the project; interviewing parents and grandparents about the way they used to play in the past and realizing toys with them; playing sensorial games and team-games; singing a jingle song of the project; creating “ground games” painted on schoolyards; singing and acting traditional music games; creating a common artwork calendar; cooperating at the Trans Europe Express Game’; watching and sharing videos from the international teachers’ meetings; participating to the virtual mobility.
-Activities mainly carried out by parents and families: working and learning by workshop activities held by external experts;participating to surveys concerning the level of interest and involvement; recreating old toys; helping teachers and children to organize public social events. and participating actively to them.
-Cooperative public events of social impact: old toys exhibition in schools and other local public places, sport game day, final festival.
Many of those activities were realized by using part of the “Project Management and Implementation” grant.

The activities produced concrete results such as: workshop materials; the jingle song and the logo of the project; a 3D “Trans Europe express game” with which children can play nowadays; multimedia presentations and reports; artwork and handmade gadgets; an international blog and a Facebook group to share documentation; a printed guide book with traditional games from each country, later published online and a photo-book of the international meetings,the Erasmus corners in each school, the production of teaching materials and gadgets, the involvement of local authorities and media, parents and families, the realization of social events.Other outcomes of the project have been: an increased knowledge about “learning by playing”; an increased professional teacher level; children’s and teacher’s skills and interests improvement and horizon widening; a collaborative attitude and goal sharing; the growth of a general friendship and cooperative climate.

The results of the project have been made accessible for others through various instruments such as: events, publications, web, social media, face-to-face meetings. A dissemination plan was set to help to those who have to face the same problems. The applied strategies and the positive results have been shared.The good cooperative work among families, schools, teachers and different institutions within the project will promote the use of the good practices along educational processes.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 111745 Eur

Project Coordinator

ISTITUTO OMNICOMPRENSIVO LEONARDO DA VINCI & Country: IT

Project Partners

• 12 nipiagogio glyfadas
• COLEGIO DE EDUCACIÓN INFANTIL Y PRIMARIA NANDA CAMBRES
• Agrupamento de Escolas de Marrazes
• ODZ”Slaveiche”N17
• Fasori Kicsinyek Kindergarten
• CEIP Valdemembra